Being a Genius Helps
by Encendrel
Summary: Three things to know about Evan- He's certainly not an adult. He's the successor to Freud, a legendary Dragon Master. He's also an Arch Mage of two different paths. 'In which Evan was a mage before he became a Dragon Master'
1. Intelligence is Profit

**Every time I play Maplestory I want to write this story.**

**And the feeling doesn't go away.**

**Dammit.**

**I don't own Maplestory.**

* * *

"Alright, Grendel. I'm finished with these books. I'm going to head back home after this." A mage, no more than a boy, stretched and closed a tome.

He was Evan. Apprentice Arch Mage in control of Ice, Lightning, Fire, and Poison. He was currently under the tutoring of Grendel the Really Old, and was attempting to achieve mastery of two magic paths.

People said that it was 'impossible' and that 'he was breaking the reclassing system' but bah, what did they know?

He was also a farmhand. A powerful, genius farmhand, but still a farmhand. It ran in the family.

"Be careful on the way back, Evan." The old, gravelly voice spoke. How did Grendel float in the air like that? How did he do that _all the time?_ It seemed that all ultra-powerful people did that.

In other news, Evan was learning how to float in the air.

As he left the library, he looked around Ellinia. He had stayed here for the past 9 or 10 months but he'd finally mastered his second magic path. Memories of all the theory cramming dredged back up and he looked back at the library with a smile.

The next time he would come here, it would be for something worthwhile. It could be some quest to slay a demon or something simple, but it wouldn't be to _learn_.

Walking down branch pathways, he contemplated his life.

The real question was if he was going to walk back home or take a taxi.

* * *

"Evan, you're like, 15. Why are you an Arch Mage?"

Evan rolled his eyes. Utah could ask the _silliest questions_ sometimes.

"Because, Utah, it means that I can take care of the foxes in the yard while you cower back here with Bull dog. Who you're also scared of." He relished in his older brother's scandalized expression. "But I have to get Dad's lunch to him so you're just going to have to wait."

Evan sighed. That morning he'd had the strangest dream (what was it about? A dragon or something?) and woken up that morning with a magical tattoo on his hand. It looked like one of the old binding pacts he'd learned about in his free time but he wasn't able to remove it. He held his hand up in the air and looked upwards at it.

"...Well, at least it looks cool?"

It seemed that hope still sprung eternal.

Evan put on the straw hat he'd gotten earlier. He honestly really didn't feel like putting on his mage gear in the hot sun (though he could cool himself with his ice powers) and the straw hat provided more shade.

Ah, yes. Evan was done walking. He could see his father close by. "Dad! Mom brought you lunch!" He walked up to his father and thrust the bag of food at him.

His dad turned in his direction and smiled. "Oh, Evan! Thanks for dropping this off! I don't know what I'd do without my wife..."

Evan grinned. "Starve, maybe?"

Gustav ruffled Evan's brown hair. "Haha, you're a good kid, you know that?"

Evan spoke cheekily. "Of course I know that."

"Oh! Right, I need to fix this fence." He gestured to the fence surrounding the farm. There was a wide hole in it, seemingly caused by an animal. "One of the pigs was acting strangely recently, and started ramming at the fence. I could use some help gathering wood. Luckily, there are some Stumps nearby..."

Evan groaned. "Seriously? Gathering wood? I haven't done that since I got my first request from the fairies..." Nonetheless, he whipped out his wand, forming a few balls of freezing ice and sending them in seemingly random directions.

But seeing as the cries of felled monsters was heard not minutes afterwards, he had struck true. "Just a minute. I'll get the wood right now."

And so he did. However, his father had one last request. One that would change his fate forever.

"By the way, Evan. One of the pigs got lost earlier..."

* * *

"Seriously?" He screamed. He began teleporting upwards as much as he could, which was futile as people tended to fall very quickly. "A hole in the ground!?"

Luckily, Maple World had no such thing as 'bodily dislocation from large fall' and the most he could get would be a minor injury. He probably wouldn't even feel it.

"Oof!" Oh. Well, he was wrong about that."

He looked around. "...A forest...? It feels kind of... familiar." The forest was littered with ruins and broken stones with the same symbol as the one on his hand.

He narrowed his eyes, priming his wand. He couldn't place it, but he felt like he'd seen this place when...

When...

Ah, in his dream! The one with the big dragon and-

He stopped and stared in awe.

In front of him was a gigantic blue egg. He reached forward, not sure if it was real. As he touched it...

It was if some missing part of him had resurfaced. He wasn't sure why, but it was if some part of him had just _blipped_ into existence and attached itself to him.

It felt right.

...And suddenly he was standing where he was before the fall, holding a familiar blue egg, with a familiar symbol on it.

He looked at the pig.

"You have caused me a lot of trouble, you know that?"

* * *

One returned pig later, he was back at the house. With a little gratuitous teleporting, he managed it in record time.

He pulled the egg out of his inventory. Inventories were useful things. No matter how clunky or large an object was, it would automatically sort in the hyperspace many adventurers called an inventory.

"What am I going to do with you...?"

When asking his dad about hatching his (presumable) dragon egg, he'd told him to ask his mom (while foisting his empty lunch box on Evan!) because she took care of the chickens. She had told him that he could do it with an incubator. On the other hand this _was _a dragon's egg.

Well, his parents' advice had yet to fail him. "Hey, Utah, do you have an egg-incubator somewhere?"

"Yeah, I got it when some adventurer tossed it out. You want it?"

"Uh, yeah."

Utah smiled. "Oh, but first, do me a favor and collect some eggs for me. Mom asked me to do it earlier but I'll give you this Incubator if you do it for me."

Evan rolled his eyes at his brother's laziness, but hey, free incubator. He went over to the hen's nest and grabbed a few eggs from the bucket.

"Fine, I got you your eggs." Utah shrugged and handed him the incubator.

Evan placed the egg inside. It looked... no, it felt pretty comfortable.

What was that? He wasn't in the incubator, so why was he feeling...?

Right. Magical dragon egg. Magical tattoo. He'd figure it out.

"By the way, Evan... The hens are acting up. Do you know why?" Utah called out. Evan stared at him.

"Well, they're probably scared of the foxes _you_ were supposed to clear out... Let me guess, you want me to do that for you?"

Utah laughed nervously. "Well, if you could..."

Evan walked over to the field. There were foxes stealing hens at that very moment! Evan summoned a sparking ball of poison that was designed to shut down the nervous system. Great stuff.

A few slain foxes later, he went back.

"Utah, if you don't want to help me with the foxes, that's fine, but-"

"Nonsense! I chased them towards you! The foxes just..."

Evan rolled his eyes. "And you wonder why I don't call you 'Older Brother..."

* * *

"Evan, the pigs are acting up, that might have something to do with the large amount of foxes near our house." His father called out to him.

Evan wondered if they ever had anything but requests for him. He was an adventurer, but he was no FangBlade. It wasn't as if he could complete _all_ of their requests.

Sighing, he resigned himself to butchering pigs. A quick ice bullet would preserve the livestock to be collected later.

But, in the middle of pig slaying...

"...The egg is hatching!" Evan shouted to himself. He watched excitedly as cracks began to show on the egg, then...

A blue and white baby dragon with yellow horns emerged. Still wearing part of the egg as a hat, it looked ridiculously cute.

"I'm finally here!" The baby dragon made an almost comical breath. "This must be air that I'm breathing! Woah, is that the sun? And a tree! This is incredible! I didn't even think the world would be this great when I was still inside of my egg. And you... You're my master, right? You look a little... younger than I expected?" The dragon tilted his (and it was definitely a he) head.

Evan indignantly pointed a finger in his direction. "Hey! I'm not young! You're young! Look at you!"

The dragon was equally scandalized. "I'll have you know that I've been mentally growing for hundreds of years! Don't let my form fool you!"

Evan blinked for a second... and began laughing hysterically. "Haha- My name is-haha- Evan. I think we made a -haha- spirit pact or something, so let's be friends?"

"Yeah! I'm Mir! You're my master now, so train me to be a strong dragon!"

* * *

**In which Evan learned magic before becoming the Dragon Master. I hope he doesn't seem too OOC. He's the same overeager boy but now he's an overeager _genius_ young boy. **

**For a better understanding of what this 'Evan' is like, here's a sample skill. (This would be a 10th growth skill which won't be for a while)**

**'Breath of Chaos'**

**Merge power with Mir and create a multi-element laser that hits for high damage and a chance to instant-kill.**

**LV 30: MP -150, Enemies hit 10, Number of Attacks 4, Instant kill chance 2%, Damage 500%**

**Four beams (Green (Poison), Blue (Ice), Red (Fire), Yellow (Lightning)) combine into one elemental laser shooting from Mir's mouth.**

**...Oh who am I kidding. No one reads Maplestory fics.**


	2. Evan Travels, Or Something

**Yup, time for chapter 2. This is kind of a one-shot style story, this way I can write whenever I want without anyone missing it. They will be split by titles and stuff. They're generally in chronological order but there will always be a few outliers.**

**[Obligatory comment about how no one reads Maplestory stuff]**

**By the way, seriously, why can't player mages float? Freud does it, Grendel does it, the Black Mage does it, Lotus does it, FRANCIS THE GODDAMN PUPPETEER DOES IT.**

**I don't own Maplestory.**

* * *

**Evan Travels, Or Something**

Evan was teaching his dragon how to spit poison.

...He was teaching his dragon how to spit poison _because_ he was on a flying boat and had nothing better to do.

His mentor, Grendel, had asked him to deliver a book to Ereve. It was the Grand Athanaeum's copy of 'A History of Maple World' enchanted to edit itself as time passed.

It was priceless.

In fact, why Grendel had trusted _him_ to transport it instead of just teleporting it like Evan knew he teleported everything else, he would never know. However, the quest reward was 50000 mesos so he wasn't going to complain. Also, Grendel said that he would look for more information on Onyx Dragons as they seemed to be extinct.

"Mir, for poison think about liquid fire." He stated. The little dragon (now grown past his eggshell hat) turned to him and spit out a jetstream of fire.

Evan's magic barrier blocked it. "Don't sass me, Mir. Do you want to melt through wood or not?"

_...Yes, Master._ Mir said in a rather put-out fashion. Evan patted the small dragon.

"You'll get it soon. It's pretty complicated compared to fire or ice." A mental sigh was heard from the dragon.

While fire or lightning was a natural trait of dragons, something like poison would be harder to create. Not that Mir actually _really_ needed to spit poison, but it was great to have a large set of skills.

The ship began to slow down.

* * *

"Ah. You're Neinheart, correct?"

Evan walked through the garden, Mir flying behind him. Mir was amazed by the peaceful scenery but in all honestly it wasn't anything special.

A blue-haired young man with a monocle turned his direction. "I am. And who might you be?"

Evan pulled out the book, neatly wrapped to avoid harm. "Evan. Grendel's apprentice."

"Then I presume you have the book?"

He unwrapped the packing, flipping through the book before handing it to Neinheart. "Straight from the Grand Athanaeum. Don't burn it, don't drop it, don't even touch it if you can't help it." He looked up at the man. "Why do you need this, any- Mir, sit down. You're bothering people."

_But Evaaaan... I'm... so bored..._

Neinheart raised an eyebrow at the telepathic voice.

"Mir, didn't you say you were 'hundreds of years old' inside of your egg? Amuse yourself with introspective thought."

Neinheart found that it was as good a time as any to cut in.

"Your dragon talks?"

"He speaks telepathically. He's apparently the last Onyx Dragon, making me the successor to a legendary hero of Maple World." Evan laughed, downplaying the words he'd just dropped. Mir also made some sort of... proud noise.

"...Really? In any case, I needed this book because it seems that the Black Wings are destroying evidence of the time before the Black Mage. This includes all information on... the five heroes and the Black Mage's commanders. I was hoping that the Grand Athanaeum still held the records... and it seems they do."

Evan smiled. "That's great, then. Am I needed for anything else?"

"I believe you have nothing left to do here. However, our chief Blaze Wizard, Oz, has been wanting to talk to an apprentice of Grendel for a long time... and those are far and few between, most magicians nowadays just go to a magic school."

"I see. I'll go talk to her, then- Mir, don't eat the flowers!"

* * *

In one of the fields near the Cygnus Knights training grounds, two magicians talked.

"Oh, the alchemical formula for 'icefire' is really simple, though?" Evan tilted his head. "You draw this... and put energy at these points... It's hard to do one on the spot, though."

Oz twitched.

She'd wanted to talk to an apprentice of Grendel because she wanted to assess her knowledge, but it seemed that she was being shown up left and right. Even fire, the element she'd been blessed with, seemed to be more powerful in Evan's hands.

Icefire was a commonly used class concept that made ice behave like fire- you could do the same for other elements but this was one of the more complicated ones.

Mir flew around him like a bird, sometimes helping Evan set up a spell but often lazing around like a child.

"B-but isn't the formula for icefire supposed to be-"

"Haha. You still use that one? Well, I guess most people do but if you take out the components for 'self propagation' and 'binding' it's a lot easier to create. This is generally because not many people know how to extinguish it so it's only used in controlled demonstrations..."

She blinked. This kid was what, two or three years younger than she was? (Actually, maybe he was around the same age as the Empress? She'd never asked.) And he was already removing magic circle components like he was born knowing how to do them.

It was _unfair._ The greatest injustice was that he was considering this stuff 'basic' and 'only foundational' where some of her apprentices still had trouble drawing the circle!

Okay, she had to see this.

"So, Evan, what's the most advanced spell you've come up with?"

He raised an eyebrow. "Um... Why are you suddenly curious?"

"No reason. But you're good at this... _basic_ stuff so what do you consider afvanced?"

Evan put a fist in his hand. "Ah! I know. I made this spell recently using Mir's help... Mir? We're going to use _that._"

_Got it, Evan!_ A purple insignia, matching the one on Evan's hand, lit up in the air.

"Alright... The different clouds are set up..."

He pulled out a red wand with a purple orb. "Spark Miasma!"

* * *

"GAH! HOW DOES THE KID DO IT?"

"What's wrong, Oz?" Mihile asked concernedly.

Oz bit on a lollipop in frustration. "_Spark Miasma_... What kind of kid makes _poisonous lightning clouds__? _I couldn't even track where all of that magic energy was going!"

According to Evan, the spell was devised to neutralize a large area, sending a poisonous electric shock up the nervous system. He'd apparently also added an ice element in order to enclose an area and preserve it throughout the dangerous poison effect.

He also muttered something about 'and that's why you should want to spit poison' to Mir but she wasn't paying attention.

"Oz, calm down. It's not as if he's bett-" Irena tried to console her.

"_OH. BUT HE IS._ I'm the leader of an entire class of magicians, you know? And this guy just shows up and does everything I did _better!_"

"...Hehe..." A soft voice giggled. The chief knights all turned to the origin, which came from the Empress herself, resting with Shinsoo.

"...Empress?" Neinheart asked. "Did you find something funny?"

She shook her head and opened her eyes. "No, Neinheart. ...I'd like to talk to Evan too, one day."

Neinheart paused for a second, but simply shook his head. He recognized... certain signs of _something_ but he'd leave it alone for now. "Well, the hope of Maple World is strong, at the very least... If-no, when the Black Wings attack, I'll be glad to have him on our side."

* * *

**Demolishing Strongholds Can Be Good For Your Health**

"...So this is Edelstein, huh?"

Evan floated himself off of Mir (who was finally large enough to carry him)

"You there!"

Some fat guy with strange black attire and a golden winged symbol called him out. He was eating fries and seemed to be mostly bald, with the exception of two strange tufts of hair and a weird mustache.

Evan turned. "Yes? Do you need something?"

The fat guy menacingly glowered at him. "You, foreigner. Come with us at once. The Black Wings is taking you into custody."

Evan raised a rather skeptical eyebrow at this. "Really? _You're_ going to make me do that? Try me." Mir made an intimidating noise (deciding that speaking might not be the greatest of ideas), almost snapping at Bavan.

"I'll have you know that I am Bavan, an important member of the Black Wings. A-and control your lizard!"

Evan snorted. "Lizard? Mir, annihilate him."

Mir breathed out a stream of light-green lightning, shocking the man and and knocking him unconscious.

_Evan, I think we're in trouble..._ Mir spoke telepathically. Outwardly, he made a small whining noise.

Evan clicked his tongue. "Seriously. You knock out one watchman and suddenly everyone's after you. And I'm just a tourist you know?"

Another 'Black Wings' member, a lanky blonde one, charged him, only for Evan to teleport behind him and start running towards the parks. The man casually shrugged, not all that invested in chasing the man. That way only lead to the mines, which meant that he would be caught anyways.

Or so they thought.

* * *

"Claudine. Did you find anything?"

The black-haired woman looked at Brighton, the Battle Mage. She paused for a moment. "It's just interesting..."

"What is?"

"There was an incident earlier in Edelstein. Bavan tried to arrest some kid again."

"Again? But what's so special about this time?"

This time Checky spoke up. "The kid had a dragon. He seemed to be a powerful magician- if nothing else, he's good at making a ruckus."

Brighton raised an eyebrow. Belle and Elex currently weren't in, staying out so that they wouldn't realize that a certain group of people were missing each time. "Okay, but why does this matter?"

She gestured towards the surveillance screens. "Look."

The same kid was now at the Edelstein mines, near the Black Wings HQ. The guard at the front was trying to arrest him.

Evan pointed towards the man and a stream of fire engulfed the rabbit. When the smoke cleared up, a knocked-out (and slightly charred) rabbit was standing there. Evan shrugged in walked through.

"This boy must be very brave or very foolish." Checky noted. Claudine pursed her lips before replying.

"I don't think it's either." At their gesture to continue, she looked back at the screen. "I think he's just strong."

* * *

"Oh, come on. You can't seriously believe I'll buy that talk about the Black Wings working towards saving humanity, do you?" He raised an eye at Hiver. "Well, at the least, you haven't tried to arrest me yet."

* * *

**There you have it. Two short stories about Evan's adventures travelling.**

**No, he didn't destroy the Black Wings base. He just caused some damage.**

**...serious damage.**

**Also, my CygnusxEvan ship lives on! I don't care if no one else thinks it exists! It could totally happen!**


	3. Prelude Unfound

**I was planning to write the Six Heroes, but eh. So, two of the heroes, a Black Heaven Teaser and a Friendstory Teaser that'll never be followed through on. **

**If you wanna talk to me in game (don't know why you would) it's Proteani on Scania, or, well, Encendrel on Galicia.**

**I don't own Maplestory.**

* * *

**Seal Stone GET!**

Aran huffed, wiping her brow as she stood straight. She observed the battlefield.

She cursed when she saw the the Seal Stone was no longer in its proper place. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw one of the Black Wing controlled ninja-bunnies escape.

Then, a flash of light. The ninja bunny disappeared. In its place, a boy holding a familiar gem.

"Eh... You looked like you needed help." He blinked. Aran noted that this boy looked a lot like Freud, but with a naive gaze and childish pose. He was standing in place, though, as if he'd reached some great revelation.

"...Thanks for that." She finally decided. Nothing to do but fix things while she could. Evan handed her the stone.

"You need this?"

She nodded mutely.

Well. That was anticlimactic.

* * *

**A Certain Heroic Spectre**

Evan closed his eyes, staring at the roof of the inn he was currently staying at. He was currently in Magatia, to learn more about Alchemy. Mir had stayed in the desert, because it was warmer there than in the cold city close by.

However, he then felt a presence. Well, not really a presence, but the foreboding feeling that someone was nearby.

The feeling got stronger... stronger...

"Gotcha!"

He suddenly shouted. He heard a cry and a crash.

"Damn... I must be getting rusty now..." He heard a mutter.

Evan sat up, opening his eyes.

There was a man in a rather fancy-looking white and gold suit, with a cane and a blue hat that looked like a mix between a turban from Ariant and a raven's beak.

"And who are you?" He wandlessly prepared a mediocre lightning bullet; it wouldn't do to be defenseless before equipping his usual gear. Given, he was extremely weak without his wand, but he could manage well enough for some petty thieves.

Even if it was in the middle of the night... He sighed internally.

"Whoa, whoa! Cancel that spell!" The voice seemed rather smooth, the kind of voice a playboy would have. Evan noted violet eyes and platinum blonde hair, as well as the defensively raised hands. "I'm on your side, I swear!"

Evan yawned and deactivated the magic. "Explain yourself."

The man dropped his hands and stood up. "You might have heard of me..." He started a flourish. "My name is Phantom, the legendary thief!" A shroud of cards surrounded him.

Evan was unimpressed. "I'd have imagined that one of the _five legendary heroes_ could sneak past a some gullible kid like me."

"Sh-shut up!" The man pointed in indignation. "I'll have you know that I woke up at level 10 a few weeks ago, and that if this was before, I would never have been caught!"

Evan sweatdropped, but hopped off his bed and grabbed his wand off the stand. He was still wearing pajamas, but he didn't need to don battle gear to have a conversation.

"Even so, don't you have something more important to do than steal from me? Actually, why me in the first place?"

He searched through his link, and found that Mir was still napping peacefully. That was alright, Evan could wake him later.

Phantom breathed out. "One of my informants (by this he meant his butler, though he didn't say this) told me that an Onyx Dragon had been spotted around Magatia. And since I had to pick up an order from an alchemist, I figured I might... drop by and see if Freud was here."

Evan blinked, then sighed. "I'm not Freud. Everyone keeps thinking that, though."

"I noticed that when you started using magic without a dragon. Heh, Freud wouldn't go more than 5 steps away from Afrien." Phantom chuckled to himself.

Phantom held out a hand. "Well, kid, it's nice to meet you. We'll probably be working together after this point."

Evan grasped the hand. "My name's Evan, by the way."

Phantom began to walk out the door, cards lifting around him.

"I'll remember that name."

And he was gone.

Evan sighed, tossed his wand carelessly on the stand, and plopped back on the bed.

"What a guy..."

He blinked.

"He stole my wallet!"

* * *

**The Backyard Magicians Club**

**(or, 'Is that _really_ your name?)**

"... You know that we can't just make one of those memory mirrors on the spot, don't you?" Evan sighed. He already knew where this was going. Years of experience.

"Indeed we cannot. However, this is an important part of our role in the Alliance. I will make it if you bring me the following materials...

He twitched as the x300 count items were listed out.

_...Master, this is going to be a long day._

* * *

Well, it _was._ What a waste of a good study time. Well, better get back into routine. After all the time he'd spent in Magatia learning alchemy (as well as finding the magical properties of dragon scales, or whatever) he still had things to do at home, or at least the area near his home.

He walked into a certain house in Henesys, taking note of the cat on the table. Fanzy, the senior apprentice (apparently) was lazing around while Elwin put a hand on his chin and tried to compare magic components. Lily sat in a chair and hummed to herself, before looking up at him.

"Oh! It's Evan!" She stated cheerfully, and Elwin suddenly seemed a lot more relieved. She was probably railing on him for messing _something_ up before he arrived.

Those four were all Grendel's students. It was a study club, but then Elwin and Lily tacked 'master' to the end of their title and suddenly they weren't jobless bums. Bah, talk about wishy-washy.

(Then again, was he really one to talk? He had become the Dragon Master after all.)

Elwin was probably getting scolded (again) for messing up one thing or another and was considering Evan his savior (or cute distraction, depending on who you were).

"Evan! Just the kid I wanted to see."

Evan stared indignantly for a moment at being called a kid, but shook his head. "Elwin, what do you need? Also, nice wardrobe you got there."

"Ahahaha... I just had so many sets of _clothes_ and I really needed one on the spot... Anyways, can you tell me if Witchgrass or Lidium would work better for house protection?"

Fanzy yawned and disappeared... though no one was sure if he was actually gone. Lily shook her head at the discussion of magical amplifiers and left for something else to do.

...And once the coast was clear, Elwin nervously grinned.

"...I think I'm in trouble, Evan."

And he opened the wardrobe, releasing the student and revealing the portal inside.

* * *

"Sorry, kid. I'm gonna need you to give me a crash course on... _Earth, _you said?"

Evan had been forced to cash in a favor, resulting in the Sengoku-era girl looking around Elwin's house with strange curiosity. Elwin's request was to 'fix the issue without Grendel realizing' and the only people who could conserve magical energy well enough to avoid Grendel's notice were Kanna, Jett, Demon, Zero, and himself.

He couldn't pick Jett for... _reasons, cough C_osmic Upheaval _cough_, Demon radiated too much killing intent for most citizens, and he wasn't crazy enough to ask a Trandescendent to cross worlds and act like a normal person.

Maybe he would be, someday. With all the crazy going on around him, he might absorb it through osmosis.

"U-uh, yeah. Basically, we study things like math and science, and there's no quests or anything..."

Evan twitched.

This was going to take a lot of getting used to.

Now, about the dimensional portal...

"Geez, where's a pair of Spectrum Goggles when you need them?"

* * *

_Give an appropriate answer._ Evan said to her. He'd just given a little background- Japan existed, but not in the same way, there was no magic and no war. He seemed very off balance when he said that, but pulled through anyways.

...After some dimension altering ("I might have messed up, but there's a first time for everything") and Kanna's second dimension hop since Honnou-ji, they set out as the Japanese siblings Ayanokouji Kanna and Ayanokouji Evan who happened to look absolutely nothing like each other. But shady cover ups still had to be done.

"My name is Kanna, I like studying," She then paused. What other things did she even like...? "Studying..." She raised an hand to her chin. "...And playing with my pet fox."

Ah, there we go. She completely ignored the younger boy who had raised his hand to his forehead in exasperation.

"I'm Evan. I like hanging out with my friends (he neglected to mention what kind of friends, of course), surprising others, and taking care of Mir (he also failed to point out what Mir was, but everyone assumed it was another pet fox or something).

"Evan? Is that even a real name?"

The aforementioned dragon master leered in the direction of the voice and spoke in a way as if educating a particularly stupid child:

"What, never heard of anyone named Evan before?"

Said student decided that it was just an American name or something.

* * *

**Heaven Is For The Transient People**

"Phantom? What's with that look on your face?"

Evan said this but actually never lifted his face from his research notebook. But, Phantom really did have a strange look on his face so he didn't bother to ask how Evan knew.

"...I went into Grendel's Mirror."

Evan snapped his fingers. "Ah, that... I guess whatever the Empress was concerned about must have been a bigger deal than expected."

Phantom blinked, then shook his head. "Yeah, we'd better get ready for action. But I needed to ask you something."

At this point Evan really did wrench his eyes from the notebook. "Wah, me? Why?"

Phantom chuckled hollowly. "Well, all of us used to talk to Freud when we needed help, and you said you were going to succeed the guy, so.."

Evan sighed, but closed the notebook.

"You know, I don't really know 'people' that well, but whatever. What is it?"

At this point, Phantom noted something. The two were similar in many ways- their rigor, intellect, (possible) charisma, but their outlooks were totally different.

Freud saw humanity as a whole.

Evan saw a large amount of individuals clumped together.

It was refreshing, but besides the point.

"Evan, what would you do if you realized your most hated enemy thought you were the villain?"

* * *

**Yeah, it's been a while. Sue me.**

**For the record, in "Backyard Magicians Club", Evan wears an Ellinia Magic Academy Uniform. Random trivia. Also, it occurs a day or two before it would happen in the actual game. The more you know, right?**

**It always gets me that you can make your motto whatever you want, and no matter how damn normal your name is, they'll wonder if your name is real.**

**I also ship Phantom and Orchid.**

**(hides in bomb shelter)**


End file.
